anyone have a child that dropped napping altogether early? My dd has trouble taking naps and she's 28 months old. She'll nap but won't untill about 3 or 4 pm if she does nap. Even if I am lucky and can get down early right after lunch at 1pm it affects her bedtime. She won't even be tired to go to sleep at bedtime till 10pm if she naps at all. Even early. So I decided to try letting her just skip naps and see if that would help. THe first few days she did fine, then a few days later she seemed more tired and needed a nap a couple days but then after a week or so she seems to have adjusted. Now she'll go to sleep at 8pm in 5 minutes and sleep till 8am. Which is great! But her sleep has gotten so restless and she'll cry in her sleep and have a lot more nightwaking. She still nurses at night, and we co-sleep. When she goes to bed late she will sleep 3-5 hours before ever waking to nurse. But now with no nap, she'll wake every 2 hours or so. It's exhausting. And she's crying in her sleep and having bad dreams or night terrors or SOMETHING. Friday night she woke up crying at 3am and wouldn't go back to sleep till just after 5am. She took a nap saturday since she was so tired from getting up in the early morning. She napped from 1pm to about 2:30. But she wasn't tired at bedtime and wouldnt' go to sleep no matter what till 10pm. But then she slept till 3:30 am which is a good 5 hour stretch without waking. She nursed a few times in the wee hours of the morning but slept so quietly and didn't cry or have bad dreams!

I was wondering if anyone whose children dropped naps early experienced any night terrors or restless sleep or night waking when they dropped naps? I dont' know how to get her to nap early enough to get her to bed at a decent hour. I am going to try give her a snack at bedtime and put her to bed earlier like at 7pm and see if that helps her get more sleep and not sleep so restlessly.

Yep, my DD dropped naps right around that age. We moved bedtime up a bit to compensate. It saved me the aggravation of fighting with her to nap and then fighting with her to go to bed. She sleeps very very well at night and goes right to bed now! Between 7-7:30pm.

My children never napped or if they did they napped late in the evening out of exhaustion. They never slept well at night and required medication to sleep. I never associated it with not napping, but it could be. They have had times in their toddler years where they slept better and did not night wake as much and still did not nap.

It may be a developemental thing she is going through. Maybe only allow her to sleep for a certain time when she falls for a nap late. I used to wake DS3 for supper. Sometimes he would buck me, but most times he got up. I can say that even with a late nap, mine went to bed at the usual 7 PM. It never effected his readiness for bedtime.

Both my girls stopped napping altogether by 18 months. It was a deliberate decision on my part becuse it started taking an hour to get them to sleep, then they would be up until 10 at night. After I eliminated naps it took about a week of adjustment but then they would go to bed at 7 and sleep until 8 straight through. They both did this, which leads me to think my kids have lower sleep needs. I knew naps were over for the little one when we drove 8 hours to cape cod and she didn't sleep in the car at all at 17 months!

I think if kids can make it through the day with no nap without getting cranky or melting down and night time sleep is good they are ready to drop the nap!

Dd1 stopped napping at 22mos. She turned cranky and didnt sleep well at night so after a couple wks I got the idea to make her lay down for 'quiet time'. I put a frog night light on a timer and told hershe didnt have to sleep but she had to stay in bed with her books and babies and when froggy came on she could get up. It made a world of difference. She didnt need a nap but she did need time to relqx and decompress. She'll be 8 next wk and still needs her quiet time or she turns into a right mess come 6pm.